


Give and Take

by nicdbroc



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:50:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicdbroc/pseuds/nicdbroc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the Christmas episode. Carmilla is distant, and Laura takes it upon herself - in true, obnoxious journalism major extraordinaire fashion - to get to the bottom of this. The results satisfy no-one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vague Disclosures

"You know I've blacklisted your tumblr song posts," Carmilla sniffs derisively when asked. "And you still think I am so incapable that I can't hotwire a car?"

 

She doesn't hotwire the car, of course, because there are _some_ things in the world she can't do. This is their situation: they've rinsed Mama Klaus' gingerbread stash, stuck in the middle of a Sound of Music horror show spin-off, with little money and little patience for each other, and they never make it back to Laura's dad.

 

Carmilla grows so cranky that it makes Laura want to chant " _Oupire! Oupire!_ " in her face until she smiles. It's a sudden escalation, too; Laura knows this because it wasn't until day seventeen or eighteen Carmilla had to kill a badger, upon fleeing Silas. But they're barely four days clear of the creepy gingerbread diner and Carmilla's a very rigor mortis kind of grey. That dinner time, they huddle around a fire outside a disused shelter on an offbeat track to nowhere, and Carmilla-the-panther is just in their line of vision, mauling a badger to death behind a bush.

 

Once Carmilla is human (vampire) again, LaFontaine applauds, their love for the morbid shining through in a mildly psycho grin. "That is disgusting. I mean, at least switch up your species of choice a little bit. Give the ecosystem a chance."

 

Carmilla, who seems every bit as feral now as she had been two minutes ago, wipes her mouth.

 

"Where would a centuries-old vampire rank in your damned ecosystem, you naive little -"

 

"Jeez, I'm just saying - next time you wanna devour a live animal, don't devour it in front of us!"

 

"Oh, don't start acting like you're appalled by my way of living _now_ ," Carmilla snaps. "You know what: the next time some insane, cannibalistic, spurned lover of St. Nick wants to rip your intestines out, don't rely on me to tear her head off."

 

"They're not saying they're appalled," Laura tries, elbowing a defiant LaF in the ribs. It's been like this for a few days. Back-and-forth arguments, usually between the duo because Perry's too considerate to pipe up and Laura doesn't care about whether Carmilla's a panther or a vampire or anything else. "Carm."

 

"I get it," Carmilla mutters. She waves a hand. Dismissive. "I'll feed somewhere else."

 

"That's _not_ what's happening here -"

 

"This isn't your problem, Laura," Carmilla says, walking away. Laura straightens up, ready to talk her girlfriend to (another) death. Carmilla's mounting hatred for everything around her hasn't been without its consequences, and winding Laura up is one of them. "Just let it go."

 

 

-

 

 

If there's one thing Laura Hollis, budding investigative journalist, does not do - it's give up. It's difficult, though. Carmilla isn't just a case to crack. Carmilla has three hundred odd years of history she isn't privy to. Laura knows bits-and-bobs about Ell. She knows that Carmilla loved Ell. She knows Carmilla woke to the sound of explosions and the Great War. There's still a huge blank space that has yet to be filled. Carmilla has spent so long patching her heart up with iron and Kevlar that it'd take ten Stannis Baratheons to bash down her walls. Laura thinks maybe she possesses this strength, but unfortunately, LaF and Perry are the furthest things from usefulness (i.e. Davos), and the longer Carmilla seems to spend in their presence, the moodier she becomes.

 

One day, when Laura's returning from the convenience store, she finds Carmilla sitting aloof from LaF and Perry, twiddling Laura's old-fashioned phone in her hand.

 

"Danny," Carmilla still acts like she's the devil incarnate, "says Silas is safe to return to."

 

It gets mixed reactions. Perry's the first to squeal with enthusiasm, and a predictable " _everything's going to return to normal, I knew it_ " and LaF is equally excited (" _I've missed high-grade lab equipment and TNT_ "). Laura purses her lips. She doesn't make a move for the phone, her eyes fixed on Carmilla's. "Have you been going through my phone?"

 

"No," Carmilla says. "It just buzzed and I saw it."

 

"And it just so happened to be Danny?"

 

"Yes. I promise."

 

"Give me the phone."

 

"Fine." Carmilla hands over the phone, sullenly, and adds: "I deleted the text."

 

"You - you _deleted_ the text?" Silence. Everyone tenses, waiting for the explosion. It's easy to forget sometimes, what with Laura's stature (not much smaller than Carmilla, though) and tendency to trip over her own words, that she can be fearsome in her own way. Constant underestimation is something she's used to - her dad's trained her well. "Why did you delete it? You deleted the only bit of evidence telling us we'd be okay returning to the school? What if it's your resurrected Dean Mom, luring us back in for revenge?"

 

"Laura." Carmilla clenches and unclenches her fists, trying not to be angry. "I haven't fed in a while -"

 

"Oh don't give me that crap, you fed two days ago -"

 

"It was a _badger_!  A _badger_ , two days ago - give me some space to be irritable, won't you? I saw Xena's name pop up and I read it and deleted it because I didn't care for her voice in my head."

 

"And you're not jealous or anything?"

 

"Seriously?" When Laura doesn't concede, Carmilla covers half of her face with the palm of her hand and sighs heavily. "I really don't give the beanpole enough of my time to be jealous. Take my word for it or don't. Not that it matters, because I'll still follow you on your doomed ventures like a complete idiot who should know better."

 

 

-

 

 

"You're such a sap," LaF sniggers, when they turn back on themselves and head back in the direction of Silas. "Who knew, Carmilla the centuries-old vampire, whipped as fuck."

 

"I don't like you enough to not want to slit your throat while you sleep," Carmilla says. And so that conversation ends.

 

 

-

 

 

Room 307 is nothing but stone and bricks and mud. It hits Laura particularly hard because Room 307 was more than that, to her. It was her yellow pillow and ninety-percent sugar, ten-percent blood; it was waltzing and candles and slow, naive love. Laura stands by the mess, Carmilla's arm over her shoulder. It's quiet, save for Danny's explanation.

 

"I'm honestly surprised you guys came back," Danny says, and Carmilla stiffens beside her. "It's been absolute chaos. The rumbling's stopped, and no-one knows why, or if it'll come back. Some of the staff have been trying their best with the curriculum but it's basically us reassuring the students that everything will be okay. We're sorting the accommodation, liaising with staff and parents, and the Zetas are in charge of clearing the wreckage. We've got plenty of rooms in halls for you all," she adds, nodding towards Perry and LaF. "But it's not looking great. We're more of a construction site than a university, and there's no classes, because nobody's reached out to us and helped. I suppose that's what you get when you randomly stick a bunch of North American students in the middle of Austria. Zero allies."

 

"So the Lustig building's a goner," LaF says, slowly. "Anything else?"

 

"The alchemy lab's still pretty much there, and the canteen is a bit messy but - it's always been in a disgusting state." Danny crinkles her nose. "Eyeball pudding is on for dessert tonight, by the way."

 

"Anything else significant?" Carmilla asks. "How many dorms are gone? What about the library?"

 

"Some dorms are okay. Sorry about yours," Danny says. "Library's fine."

 

"Stupid," Perry pipes up. "Like anyone wants to read a book when their school's been destroyed."

 

"Where were you guys headed off anyway?" Danny says, though she's speaking more to LaF and Perry than Carmila and Laura. "I mean, you took off but knowing you lot - and I don't mean any offence - I really doubt you had a plan."

 

"As far away from Silas as the wind would take us," Perry says. "We thought Vienna would be nice to see this time of year. I've always thought of it as a beautiful place."

 

Carmilla nods. "It is."

 

"We pretty much lived out our post-school gap year," LaF carries on. "Got pretty far, almost got killed -" Danny balks at this, but everyone - thankfully - ignores it, "- carried on again, ran out of money, ran out of ideas and ran out of patience."

 

"At least you get to plug that thing in an actual computer," Carmilla says, and LaF holds up JP the memory stick with a waggle of the eyebrows. Perry looks like she's about to implode, and it teases a small laugh out of everyone. Everyone except -

 

"We didn't even make it close to my dad," Laura says in a small voice, the first thing she's said all day. It's then that reality, and the rubble of their old room, seems to hit them all too close to home. Just not close enough for some.

 

 

-

 

 

 

LaF crashes in Laura's bed the fifth night they're back at Silas, the bags set deep under their eyes, quiff awry and clearly not taken care of. They're wearing that horrendous sleeveless denim jacket (it always hurt Laura to witness that particular fashion faux-pas) and LaF closes their eyes in pleasure as the back of their head hits the pillow. Laura, beside her, frowns.

 

"Is Perry doing a deep-clean?"

 

"Something like that." LaF's voice is sleepy and slurred.

 

"You're lucky Carm's not here to kick you out," Laura laughs, and settles back into bed beside LaF. She pulls the covers up to her chin. It's only five-thirty AM. "I'm pretty sure she doesn't like our new room. She keeps disappearing. I literally don't know even know where she goes anymore."

 

"Prob'ly lib'ry," LaF mumbles. "Least she stuck 307 back on."

 

"What?"

 

"Sharpied," LaF corrects. "'Scuse me for not being functional yet."

 

At some point, LaF's heavy snoring interrupts her steam train of thoughts, and Laura dozes back off again. By the time she wakes up, LaF's left her a half-eaten oatmeal cookie and a hastily scribbled note (" _Gotta go, science calls_ "). It's then, at half past ten in the morning, that Laura can get to work.

 

"Viewers," she says into her webcam, prim and proper. There's no evil Dean abducting young, clever girls and there's no freakish rumble underneath the university anymore, but news is an eternal thing. Mundane or sensational, it remains a necessity. "I'm reporting to you from an entirely new environment. Think of it as a sequel to last semester's shenanigans. As you can see, we've moved rooms but Carmilla's side is still like a bomb-site, so some things never change. Anyway, in terms of development -"

 

The door slams open, and Carmilla trudges in, sharpie in hand. "Hey," is all she offers, and then a limp wave to the camera. "Ah, hello old friend."

 

Then she takes her boots off, an unprecedented move all by itself, and sags gracelessly onto the bed.

 

In a normal world, maybe in that past life where she _hadn't_ fallen for a grumpy vampire, Laura would've carried on videoing in her pursuit of an excellent grade and journalistic knowledge. Except Carmilla's hair is matted and ruffled, and her shoulders look like they can't bear her weight anymore. There is also no grade to fight for, and Prof Cochrane is probably out of the country by now, so she turns the camera off.

 

"Don't stop for me, sweetheart," Carmilla says as she reclines on the bed. "You're depriving YouTube of some serious quality."

 

"What, like you being whiney and tired?" Laura teases. It gets a smile from Carmilla, so she climbs into bed beside her. Carmilla shifts to accommodate the extra space, and slings an arm over Laura's shoulder, pulling her closer. Laura moves up to kiss her jaw, and then nods towards the sharpie. "What are you permanent marking?"

 

They both stare at the sharpie. Carmilla groans, smacks the back of her head against the headboard. It's worrying for a split-second, until Laura spots the disdain in Carmilla's eyes and grins. "Don't be soppy," Carmilla warns, and Laura's grin broadens. "I thought I'd write 307 on our door. You were so upset about the loss of that silly room, the least I could do was bring it here. I tried to salvage things from the debris too but I couldn't find anything."

 

"Is that where you've been?"

 

"For the record: completely not worth my time."

 

 _Don't be soppy_ rings clear and true in her mind, but Laura still smiles and snuggles closer into Carmilla. She can feel her sigh in irritation. Mock-irritation, Laura likes to think. It's not as grand a gesture as leaping into an all-consuming Light with an all-consuming Blade, but it's the little things in life that counts, right?

 

"You didn't have to do that," Laura says, and she means it. " _You're_ here. And really, you're my favourite thing from that room."

 

"I told you to not be soppy," Carmilla grunts. The hand on her arm squeezes, and for a moment they just lie there, staring into space. Laura considers moving to put something on her Spotify, a bit of music, a bit of noise - anything - but she can hear her heartbeat thudding through her chest, so she leans up and kisses Carmilla on the lips. It is soft, and tender, and very much like their first time. They pull away, and their eyes blink open at the same time. It's the closest she's felt to the warmth of room 307, and Carmilla rests her forehead against Laura's. "We'll get back to your dad," she says, quietly. "It doesn't matter if we start from our old room or our new one, or even if we're not at Silas. You'll see him soon."

 

This time, when Laura kisses her, she pushes Carmilla against the headboard, straddles her lap and no more words are spoken.

 

 

-

 

 

"Remember what I said about clogging the shower drain?" Laura comes out of the bathroom with damp hair and a toothbrush in her mouth, glowering at the lump-under-the-covers that is her girlfriend. Her girlfriend who still can't unclog the drain. It's never been an endearing trait. "That rule doesn't change just because we've moved rooms!"

 

"Yeah, and it also means I won't follow that rule, no matter what room we're in," comes  Carmilla's reply, sufficiently annoyed for ten in the morning. Laura's pillow is clamped over her head, presumably working as a sound barrier.

 

"Carm! You're my girlfriend now, you're supposed to _listen_ to the things I say!"

 

"Listen, compliment, validate - all that, too?"

 

"You realise that is being _in a relationship_ , don't you?"

 

"I've had long enough to figure _that_ part out, Journalism." The voice is still muffled by the pillow, and Laura returns to brushing her teeth. Dating a vampire is compromise enough. Dating an arrogant, lazy vampire with her head stuck up her arse is another thing altogether. There's nothing but the sound of angry teeth-brushing, and then Carmilla calls out, "The sex was lovely, by the way - thank you, _madam_."

 

Laura watches herself blush in the mirror and despises the fact that a.) Carmilla probably knows she's going red - and b.) she's blushing at all. When she's done, she makes Carmilla unclog the drain.

 

 

-

 

 

 

Carmilla has a habit of disappearing and sneaking back into the room at four o'clock in the morning. This particular night, her toe stubs the door on the way in and she curses under her breath. It's enough to stir Laura from her slumber, and a wayward hand moves up to turn on the bedside lamp. Carmilla's frozen in the doorway, like she's just woken a dragon. Her boots - which she kicks off - are muddy. Otherwise, she looks healthier than the clammy-greyness of yesterday. Laura sits up in her bed, despite Carmilla's whispered protests telling her to go back to sleep. She rests on her elbows, watches as Carmilla lights a candle.

 

"Were you off hunting?" she asks. She thinks, for a moment, _how many people ask their girlfriends this question?_ And then: _how long before I go insane because of it_?

 

Carmilla lights another. It's wild fig and apple blossom, something Perry had given them as a 'housewarming gift'. "Can you smell it?"

 

"I don't need to smell it, you look like you've just run a marathon," Laura says, and Carmilla turns only to shoot her a lopsided smile. It's an affirmation she'll take, and Carmilla disappears to shower. By the time she reappears, Laura's moved over to the side of her bed by the wall, and Carmilla clambers in beside her. At least this time, she smells like shea butter and not dead flesh. "You've been hunting more than usual."

 

"I'm hungry," Carmilla says, presses a kiss to the crook of Laura's neck. She's not sure if that's part of the joke or not. "Now that you're sapping all my energy away from me with that mouth of yours, and those fingers, I've got to replenish more frequently, haven't I?"

 

Laura's cheeks turn a violent shade of crimson. "You make it sound almost poetic."

 

"Mm. Maybe it is." Carmilla's hand lifts the hem of her pyjama top, fingers splaying over the smooth skin of her stomach. Toned and wondrous, considering the amount of junk she eats. "I could write novels about how beautiful you are when you're clawing into the sheets, moaning my name loud enough for the whole of Austria to hear."

 

There's a very tiny section of Laura's brain, still so oblivious, that wants to say, ' _how many girls have you told that to?_ ' but thankfully, that's not an active part right now. She turns her head so she can kiss Carmilla on the lips, sighs a little when she feels Carmilla's tongue slide into her mouth. Her hands squeeze her waist, asking for permission - she doesn't really _need_ to ask permission anymore, but she does it anyway, and Laura shifts closer to her. It's when Carmilla moves on top of her, leg swinging over Laura's lap, that Laura glimpses a smear of blood on Carmilla's top. It's dull and dried, like there's been effort to clear it off - but now she's seen it, it glistens like it's been freshly spilled and Laura stills.

 

Carmilla stares at her, both hands still cupped around her face. Her hands, thankfully, are clean. "You _can_ smell it, can't you?"

 

"No," Laura says, emphatically, truthfully. Sometimes when she is being honest it sounds like she's trying too hard not to lie. This is one of those problematic times. "I can't. And even if I could, I wouldn't mind. I've literally seen you kill someone."

 

"I know you're trying to be reassuring, but that doesn't help -"

 

"It should," Laura cuts in. "The point is, is that if I was going to get all weird about you being a vampire, I would have staked you when I had you tied up to that chair." There's a lull in the conversation (argument? She's not sure what it is) and then Laura mutters: "I don't know if I ever told you how sorry I was about that, by the way."

 

"It's fine," Carmilla dismisses, sounding entirely like it's _not_ fine, "if I was bitter about that I probably wouldn't have fallen for you, so there's that."

 

"People still make mistakes in relationships."

 

"People don't usually tie their future-girlfriends up and keep them hostage for nine days." Maybe Carmilla's not quite ready to let that one go, and she rolls off Laura. Their hands lock together. Laura squeezes. "It's nothing we need to talk about. I'm over it, alright? I've had much worse done to me."

 

 _That doesn't make what I did justifiable_ , Laura thinks, but Carmilla's giving her that one-sided smile and it's enough to convince her that maybe, just for now, it's okay. They lie in bed together for a bit, talk about mundane things like the constellations in the sky and how the library's stopped trying to kill anyone in there past six PM, and then Carmilla goes to shower again.

 

"I could still smell it," Carmilla explains when she's done, and she's towelling her hair (using one of Laura's towels, of course).

 

Laura, eyes half-shut, laughs quietly. "I think you just smell like old books."

 

"That's why nobody fucks philosophy majors," Carmilla murmurs when she crawls into bed for the second time, and Laura thinks she giggles until she falls asleep.

 

 

-

 

 

Maybe Carmilla's been getting progressively greyer, skin-wise, and Laura hasn't been paying enough attention - because the next time she notices it, she almost mistakes Carmilla for an actual corpse. It wouldn't be too crazy, what with all the - vampireness - but Carmilla has constant sources of blood at Silas. LaF's supply is questionable and clearly not as satisfactory as fresh-from-a-horny-virgin (of course) but it's sustenance. Carmilla's feeding regimen is better than when they were on the run. Laura knows this because no badgers have been harmed recently (not by Carmilla's hand anyway).

 

Maybe it's the energy spent helping Danny and the Summer Society girls rebuild the school. The Zetas have taken full charge of most of the campus, but in terms of the halls of accommodation and the botanical gardens (Elsie's commander of that section - something about cacti) the girls are ardently leading the way. There's no new Dean, so everything's still very haphazard - but to be honest, it wasn't as if Silas was known for its astounding curriculum and academia.

 

Carmilla and Danny take to regularly bickering like children. Today's topic is carmine or cardinal red for the newly-built common room's feature wall. Laura's not sure who's on whose side, but Danny's face is already too _carmine_ for her liking, so she butts in, paint-roller in one hand.

 

"You know Danny saved your life," Laura chides. She hands over the paint-pot. It's fuchsia; the duo avoid each other's gazes. She doesn't want to sound patronising, but she thinks it kind of comes off that way. It's also immensely satisfying, the way they quieten (briefly). "Play nice."

 

"I didn't ask her to save my life," Carmilla mutters.

 

Danny glares at her. "You told me to round up the troops! You were never going to go in that building and face your Mother all by yourself, that'd just be stupid."

 

"I only told you to do that so she -" Carmilla jabs the paintbrush in Laura's direction, flinging bits of paint everywhere. Danny groans. "Wouldn't get eaten at the first hurdle. It wasn't a cry for a profound friendship, Eiffel."

 

"I thought not," Danny scoffs. "You don't seem the type for profound friendships."

 

"You don't seem the type for camel toe," Carmilla sneers. She points. "But here we are."

 

They carry on behaving like imbeciles and at some point, Perry comes along with some vegan brownies. Laura munches happily through her recommended daily intake of two-thousand calories, Carmilla shrugs and complements the taste half-heartedly, and Danny thanks Perry graciously. They eat and eat, and Laura thinks maybe the route to normalcy is not so winding after all.

 

 

-

 

 

'Normalcy' is something of a double-edged sword. Carmilla washes a total of zero of her dishes, still wears Laura's underwear and refuses to watch Spring Awakening bootlegs with her. The lack of study buddies _is_ pleasing, though, and whenever she's skyping her dad Carmilla comes over and sets a steaming mug of cocoa onto the table. Carmilla justifies this, later: "first impressions are the best impressions."

 

Laura thinks she's maybe learning to be a civil person.

 

Normalcy also means that Carmilla still disappears in the middle of the night and returns early in the morning, sad and cold and tired. Laura decides, after she's lost track of the number of times she found herself missing Carmilla's presence in bed, to do something about it. She _is_ a journalism major after all, and journalists follow cases until the very end.

 

She finds Carmilla in the Lustig building, sitting by the pit. Her legs are dangling over the void. There's a champagne bottle in her right hand - a familiar looking champagne bottle - and Laura doesn't bother announcing her presence. She knows Carmilla can feel her. Smell her. When she goes over to sit down by her side, Carmilla says, "make sure you don't tumble down, cutie."

 

Laura quirks her mouth upward. "What, like you did?"

 

"Like I did," Carmilla says, laughing. She offers Laura the champagne bottle. "This Moet's from the early 1900's, I think. People pay tens of thousands of dollars for this." Laura takes a tip, appreciating the lack of bubbles, the surprising complexity of the taste. It doesn't even really taste like champagne. "And yet you had me tied to a chair for it."

 

"Oh." Laura takes Carmilla's hand in hers, and presses a kiss to the back of it. They don't say anything for a while, both of them staring into the chasm that is the pit. "Would you do it again? Jump into the pit, I mean," Laura says, hastily, when Carmilla's eyes go blank.

 

It doesn't take even a second for Carmilla to reply. "Yes."

 

"Would -" Laura stops, gulps. "Would you have done it if you hadn't seen Ell?"

 

"Laura..."

 

"What if Ell wasn't on the other side? Reaching out for you?"

 

It's something she's thought about. Carmilla hadn't jumped until she'd seen Ell, until she'd broken down at the sight of the love of her life. She can still Carmilla's tears in her dreams. She wonders if Carmilla can still see Ell in hers. She wonders if there's a way to stop thinking about it.

 

"Getting that sword and jumping into that light wasn't some heroic crap," Carmilla says, slowly. "I didn't do it to be a hero. I certainly didn't do it for the past. I saw Ell and I saw my history and I remembered how I felt. I remembered how I cried for her, so I cried for her once more. And then I saw you and thought of the future, and I thought of how to be brave for once and I jumped. That's it." She's still staring into the pit, like it'll absorb all her embarrassment and awkwardness. "I did it for you. Selfishly."

 

They don't say anything. _She did it for me,_ Laura thinks. But she also thinks she's known this all along, even though sometimes she'd said otherwise. _Of course I'm doing it for you_. It doesn't make her feel any better about herself. She glances across, admiring the sharpness of Carmilla's profile, the cutting edge of her jawline and the slightly pointy nose that makes her look like she's judging everyone when she sees them. Laura almost laughs. What a bloody countess.

 

She wonders how many times Carmilla's 'died' - past that one, real death. How many times she's tried to die. How many times she's accepted death. And she realises that she never, ever wants to be responsible for any 'heroic vampire crap' ever again. She doesn't want anybody to die for her: that had been the whole point of the 'rescue the girls' crusade. So she certainly doesn't want Carmilla doing the same.

 

"I just wanted to see her again," Carmilla says, after a while. Her voice is quiet. "I'd been wanting to see her for so long. Then it happened, and I... don't know. It was a mistake, but perhaps also the right thing to do."

 

Laura tightens her grip on Carmilla's hand. "Would you want to see her again... Again?"

 

"Yes. Of course."

 

"Do you miss her?"

 

"Yes."

 

"And -" if possible, Laura tightens her grip further, "do you still love her?"

 

"As who I am now..." Carmilla pauses, long enough to be movie-worthy, and when she shakes her head, something lifts inside of Laura. "No. I don't think I do."

 

 

-

 

 

Carmilla hunts and hunts and hunts. The progression at first is gradual, but Carmilla is now disappearing every night and every night she smells more and more like blood and death. It's such a melodramatic way of thinking, she tells herself, but one night Carmilla comes back and her front is all scratched and bloody. Laura, naturally, freaks the fuck out. Carmilla, naturally, tells her to back off and hides in the bathroom to deal with the mess herself.

 

Their daytime conversations are as normal and affectionate as ever. Sometimes it feels like Carmilla's hunting habits don't exist, or certainly, their night-time doesn't exist. Their sex-life's taking a dramatic nosedive, which LaF coins 'lesbian bed death'. Laura dismisses this; Carmilla's sex drive is insatiable to the point of exhausting. The problem is that she's never _here_ , and with every night that passes without Carmilla pressed to her side, Laura feels colder.

 

The first time that cycle gets broken, they go out for dinner at Pascal's, where Carmilla pretends to dislike the low-grade food and ends up eating most of Laura's barbecued shrimp.

 

They drink margaritas and caipirinhas, and Laura asks, fuzzily, "how long is a year to you?"

 

Carmilla's not drunk, but she is confused. "What?"

 

"Well." Laura's tongue darts out to lick the sugar from the rim of her margarita glass. She watches the way Carmilla shamelessly ogles at her. Watches Carmilla's eyes drag along her lips, and then flicker down to her chest. "For a one-year old baby, a year is a lifetime, so a year's gonna seem really long. For an eighteen-year old girl, a year is only one-eighteenth of her life. So a year to that girl will seem shorter than it will do to the baby."

 

"So for me, three hundred and thirty-four years old..."

 

"Yep. What're you thinking, at over three hundred years old, about a year?"

 

Carmilla leans forward, like she's sharing some big secret. "I'm thinking about how good life would be as a margarita glass."

 

It earns her a laugh and a smack, and a bemused look from the table beside them. Laura leans over and kisses her, chastely - she's still got manners - and then sits back in her seat. Carmilla looks smug, one arm leaning against the back of her chair, the other twiddling around with the fork on her table. She hasn't touched any of her food.

 

"It varies," she says, after Laura prompts her with a well-aimed napkin thrown to the face, scrunched up into a ball. "Sometimes the moments you want to treasure the most seem to fly by. Sometimes you are stuck doing nothing at all and the years drag. No year is the same." Carmilla pauses, and Laura isn't sure if she's sad or wistful or just pensive. "I guess I've cheated Death; maybe the universe is playing with my perception of time as some sort of sick payback. If you live forever you will never be rewarded with continual happiness. And the happiest moments you _do_ find - they will be the shortest."

 

Laura stuffs another chip in her mouth so she's got an excuse for being speechless. She then stuffs a couple more in there for extra measure, and thinks about the times she's seen Carmilla laugh and joke, the amount of times Carmilla's kissed her and touched her and smiled. She thinks about the times she's seen Carmilla happy, and she _has_ been happy - nobody can fake it that well. Not even someone with over three hundred years of practice.

 

"To put it into perspective," Carmilla says, snatching a chip from Laura's plate. She pops it in her mouth and says offhandedly, mouth full: "I feel like I met you yesterday."

 

 

-

 

 

They barely make it to their room - unintentionally romantic comments are clearly Laura's thing - and Carmilla's hands are everywhere, roaming bare skin underneath the fabric of her top, her lips pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the length of Laura's jaw, her neck, her collarbone. Laura struggles audibly with the room key ("where the frilly fucking hell _is it_?") and crass language is clearly _Carmilla's_ thing. She proceeds to unbuttoning Laura's jeans in the middle of the hallway.

 

"Oh my god," Laura laughs, though she does nothing to stop her. She can hear the keys rattling in her bag. "Can you _wait_? The entire floor's gonna see this."

 

"The entire floor should be so grateful, sweetie."

 

"Do - do you _want_ another dental dam goodie box from Perry, or -" Carmilla nibbles at her earlobe. Laura's head thuds back against the door, just as she finds the key and shunts it open.

 

She tries to guide them towards the bed, but Carmilla kicks the door shut and pins Laura against it in one swift, very vampiric move - nobody should move that quickly - and is kissing her, so hard that it almost hurts. She teases Laura's mouth open with her tongue, slow and gentle, and then bites down on her lower lip, her hands yanking at Laura's top. "Off," is all she grunts, and all Laura, wedged between the door and a determined Carmilla, can do is oblige.

 

She tugs Laura's jeans off, and her legs spread automatically when Carmilla's knee nudges between them. It's a difficult job, trying to stay upright when your super hot vampire girlfriend is giving the biggest hickey known to woman on your neck, but Laura thinks she's doing alright.

 

Then Carmilla stops, pauses, takes a look at her. Leans in for a kiss, soft and slow, and it sends Laura's mind spiralling off into a blissful nothing. Carmilla cups her cheek, her thumb grazing against her skin. Every time she kisses Laura like this it makes her want to believe that a sweet forever is a possibility for them.

 

"You're so easy to turn on," Carmilla teases against her lips, chuckling at the effort Laura makes at scrunching her face up.

 

"Like you're complaining."

 

"You're right, of course." Carmilla's lips move down, tongue moving over her nipples - and then tugging, making Laura yelp. It's not exactly a surprise; as gentle as Carmilla can be, as loving and as attentive as she is to every part of Laura's body, she _bites_ , too.

 

She grips onto Carmilla's hair, hyper-aware of the fact that she's pressed against the door and literally _anyone_ could hear her - then Carmilla's teeth are nibbling on the inside of her thigh. She brushes her nose against Laura's belly button when she looks up, devilish grin at all. "I'm going to make you come so hard," she assures her, voice steady, smug because she's right. Laura nods, and shudders, and then Carmilla laps at her clit, slowly, hard. She sucks and gently grazes her teeth against it, teasing Laura's hips into bucking.

 

And it's insanely good, it always is. Laura closes her eyes, lets the warmth climb inside her, clamp around her heart and squeeze away the tension of the past few weeks. It makes her wonder, for a moment, how anyone can appreciate the constellations in the sky or the beauty of nature when you could have someone like Carmilla between your legs, fingers thrusting back and forth. _Not all of them have her,_ she thinks with a gasp, when Carmilla slides her fingers in deeper, curls, as Laura's wetness clamps around them - _not all of them have her like I do_.

 

She comes with a moan so loud that she briefly thinks back to the aftershocks of the battle, and decides she's probably a few decibels higher.

 

"Good evening, Pavarotti," Carmilla laughs. Laura's legs are trembling, and she is still struggling to formulate an appropriate response. She's pretty sure Perry's going to come knocking with a noise complaint in a minute.

 

Laura swallows and decides to wave goodbye to the idea of introducing themselves to their neighbours tomorrow morning. "Bed," she manages, and shoves Carmilla. "Bed, and you're not going anywhere."

 

 

-

 

 

When Laura wakes up, it's nine AM and she's just about to drift back off to sleep when she realises Carmilla's not beside her. The absence of her arms wrapped around her midriff is foreign only for a split-second. It's then that Laura understands what's bothering her - it's not Carmilla's absence, but rather the fact that Carmilla's absence doesn't surprise her anymore.

 

 

-

 

 

"She's not cheating on you," Perry says, reaching over to cross that possibility off Laura's chart with a big black X. Everyone else nods in agreement. "We know that for sure. I'm not the biggest fan of her, um, demeanour - but I think cheating is somewhat overdone, so."

 

"Entirely too predictable for her," Danny agrees. Then, she says - looking like it physically pains her - "I think she's way too in love with you to do something like that."

 

"Also - unless the non-existent compatriot in this cheating farce is a vampire, no sane woman would be up at the same hours as her." Perry sips her toffee nut latte. They are in Starbucks, and Laura has tucked her chin into her huge scarf. Tears had fallen ten minutes earlier, and the sorry-looking barista had come over with a complimentary plate of caramel shortbread. She honestly feels like the world's whiniest child, but she can't bear crying in her own room, as slim as the chance of Carmilla walking in on her is.

 

Carmilla hasn't even really done anything wrong. That's the problem, and that's what makes it difficult to talk. Except now, she feels like she's stuck in one of those shitty romcoms where everything would be solved by an explanatory text or a voicemail that isn't missed.

 

"Maybe she's planning a surprise," Danny tries.

 

Laura sniffs. "If the surprise involves mud and flesh -"

 

"Maybe it's a dog," Danny tries again.

 

They cross that one off the list too. It's impossible. LaF - perhaps the only sensible one out of the group - hasn't uttered a word, and it goes to prove how ridiculous the notion is, that someone can guess what goes on in Carmilla's mind.

 

"Just talk to her," Perry says. "If something's really wrong, she'll have told you." _I don't think she would,_ is Laura's problem, but Perry doesn't understand. Perry talks with such conviction and belief that it's hard to disagree with her. "It'll end up being nothing at all. We all know how much Carmilla cares for you - too much to upset you over something fickle."

 

Danny frowns. "So you're saying it's _not_ something fickle? So something serious _is_ going on?"

 

"That's not -"

 

"I think you should just let it pan out," LaF interjects with a shrug. "It's not like it's abnormal for a vampire to go off hunting in the night, right? You're only just noticing it more because you're dating now and where you didn't use to expect her cuddling up to you at night, you do now, and it's not happening."

 

"I considered that," Laura argues. She gestures to the bullet points she'd made in her jotter, just hours before this meeting. "But you're wrong. I - I notice her absence now but I also noticed it before we started dating. I didn't only grow to like her after the battle," she adds with an embarrassed flush. Everyone sips on their coffee for a bit. "Either way, _something_ changed after that. I don't know what, and I don't know why. I don't know why she won't just tell me, either. I feel like I'm worrying about nothing except I know I'm not, and I know she's slipping away because I can feel it. And I don't know how to stop a vampire slipping away from me because I'm just _me_ , and if she _does_ need saving then I'm -" Laura breaks off, feeling the sting of tears welling in the back of her eyes. Not again. She curses her over-keen adoration of heroism that makes her say: "I'm not the one to save her."

 

It goes unsaid. _She saved me from the Light and I can't save her back._

 

She shrinks further into the scarf she's bundled around her neck, knowing she looks about as terrible as she feels. It's awful; everyone around the table is staring at her, wordlessly, unsure of how to approach the situation. Perry's occupying herself with her raspberry cheesecake, eyes wide and flitting from side to side. This is the worst part about being upset. It's the part where you realise how irrational you're being.

 

"What about PTSD, or - something?" Danny says, with all the certainty of someone who's literally just read a pamphlet about it. "You said she hasn't been a hundred percent right after the battle, yeah?"

 

Laura nods. "I haven't even noticed because we've been too busy trying not to get turned into freakin' Gingerbread women..."

 

"Right." Danny glosses over that topic - she'd made it perfectly clear the first time she'd heard the tale, of how she never wanted to think of how stupid they'd been ever again. "So say she's suffering from that, or some sort of aftershock from the battle - you think you can talk to her?"

 

"I've tried asking her if she's okay. She says she's fine every time. And every time I refuse to let it go she gets mad, but like a silent mad, and it's just - a really exhausting cycle." Laura slumps. She's not Ell - she won't abandon Carmilla, not when she needs her the most. She wonders why Carmilla can love Ell the traitor and be mad at Laura the helper. _I'm not Ell_ , she thinks again, and this time she tells herself - forcefully - that it isn't a bad thing.

 

Her nose blocks up in the most unattractive manner and she sniffs, hearing the gurgle of the snot in her nostril. The tears fall and dry on her cheeks, fade into nothingness on her skin and remain, jabbing and painful in her mind. Perry reaches out with a pitiful "oh, _honey_ ".

 

"I did wonder why you guys came back," Danny says, out of the blue. It's a murmur in the fuzzy background of her tears, and general misery, but prominent enough to register in her mind. Laura glances up, and Danny's gorgeously angular face - confused and worried and caring - swims back into her vision. Danny catches her staring and shrugs. "I mean, I thought the last thing she'd want would be to see the Lustig and the pit again, but you guys returned."

 

"You texted me." Laura's not really thinking by this point - more preoccupied with how nasally she is. "You said it was safe to come back."

 

Danny laughs, humourlessly. " _Safe_? That's the last thing this damn place is. Laura, when you ran away I prayed that you'd never come back."

 

An unwelcome smog of silence blankets them, sinks right into their coffee and cake and they simultaneously lean back from the table. Danny is the first to come around to her own words, rumpling a hand through her hair as she tries to think. Laura is quicker. All she can see in her mind is Carmilla messing around with her phone, and Carmilla deleting that text; all she can see in front of her is LaF fiddling with the rim of their coffee cup. LaF, who'd crashed in her bed only a few nights upon returning, exhausted and spent. LaF, who spoke of sharpied 307s and the library, and _science calls_ , and LaF, who looks like she's -

 

"I'm only trying to stop her from dying, and only because she threatened to maim me," LaF blurts, and for some inexplicable reason it's like a fucking sledgehammer to Laura's chest, bludgeons her heart right out of the park. It's insane - she feels like she's stuck in Les Mis - a never-ending, high-pitched, whiney clusterfuck of misery. Everyone turns to stare at them, and LaF buries their face in their hands. "Oh god. Please don't let her eat me, Laura. I promised I wouldn't say anything."

 

It's a fight, between salvaging what's left of her heart and what's left of her brain in order to get an answer. But Laura Hollis, budding investigative journalist, knows what to do. Even when she's still half-crying, and full-on snotty, she leans forward and makes sure LaF forgets what personal space is. "Start talking."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! I just wanted to say, as i'm not really on any fandom social media, a massive thank you for your kind words, word-of-mouth recommendations etc. - they mean the world, and I'm glad you enjoyed "clicheproofed" :) thank you!
> 
> the pace of this one's a bit slower hence the 2 parts but i hope you enjoy it all the same. As ever, critiques, feedback, all sorts - hugely appreciated. Many, many thanks for your lovely words so far. Thank you. :)
> 
> I have sort of peeked in on tumblr: www.nicdbroc.tumblr.com - so if you have any further Questions there, then feel free to ask. :) but I generally tend to just reply to the comments here, haha. Thanks again!


	2. Satisfactory Theory

"Today's update, gentle viewers, involves a story." Laura stares into the camera, makes sure she looks livid without scrunching up her face. It's intimidating as fuck. She knows this because she has been practising in front of a mirror for the best part of the day. "This story is a tale of lies and betrayal and deceit, and how it's one-hundred percent not okay. Not to anyone, and especially -" her voice wavers, but she tells herself the world need a brave(ish) narrator, so she ploughs on, "- especially not to the people who love you."

 

She leans back in her chair and spreads her arms, and asks: "But what _is_ love?" for dramatic effect - there's heartache lying on the table but there's also an audience on the other side of the screen. She doesn't have her puppets anymore but she _does_ still have showmanship.

 

"Maybe I'll never know," she says, briefly aiming for _subtle_ and then switching to _fuck this_ , "but I'll tell you what love isn't. Love isn't finding out that you might be dying because you wielded an all-consuming Blade, and deciding that you won't tell your significant other because it might not concern them. Love isn't engineering some ridiculous return to the university where everyone almost died! Love isn't cornering a scientifically-gifted friend of your significant other, and threatening to gut them if they don't offer their help. Love isn't stealing said scientist's prized memory stick and hiding in the library scouring Sumerian texts for the answer to this problem of mortality, all the while deceiving your worried-as-flaming-hell girlfriend. Love isn't lying to your girlfriend- because that had worked out so well the first time, you remember that time your _evil mom possessed my body and you didn't tell me_? So -" she breaks off, shakes her head. In the end, fire rages and sparks until there's nothing but sorry, blackened embers - and she's burnt out quick. "You know what the saddest thing is? Is that I know more about what love isn't, than what love is. So talk to me. And stop hiding."

 

 

-

 

 

Laura sits by the pit, legs dangling over the void. And wonders. What does Carmilla think to herself, when she sits here all night and drinks champagne until she can't think anymore? Is this how to get inside her head? She glances down at the two-litre plastic bottle of cheap cider LaF had procured for her, takes a swig and grimaces. It is a pitiful attempt, but she has never been the brooding alcoholic type.

 

The battle remains crystal-clear in her mind. Carmilla's blank, tear-stained face. She can hear the exhaustion in Carmilla's voice, and see the conviction with which she jumped. She can feel Ell's pull, even though it's not for her. Laura looks into the pit again. The answer is in there. The answer, to all the mystery and all the lies - they're at the bottom of that pit, where everything started. The Blade's probably there too, or the remnants.

 

It was supposed to shatter all that oppose it. That's what JP's search had come up with the first time.

 

"You know I watch your videos," Carmilla says from behind, when Laura's lost track of how long she's been sitting there, in a trance by the pit. She turns her head slightly and watches Carmilla approach the edge, champagne-less. Her smile is strained. "If you've got a message for me, you need only tell me, not the entirety of the internet too."

 

"I wanted to vent," Laura admits. "The internet's good for that, you know, supportive fury. If I just vented at you, you'd be all calm and collected and that's not what I needed."

 

"I know." Carmilla sighs and sits down beside Laura. She places a hand on Laura's thigh, and when that hand doesn't get brushed away, gives a tiny squeeze. "Though I must say I enjoyed your passive-aggressive tumblr tagging. Must have roused a few over-protective fans of yours."

 

"You checked my tumblr?"

 

"And your Twitter. When I saw your wrath had spread across _three_ social networking platforms, I knew I was in trouble." Despite herself, Laura laughs. Carmilla squeezes her thigh again. "I'm here, though, Laura. I suppose I was a fool to think I could keep a secret from a journalism major, especially one with an A- from Cochrane - but I'm not hiding. Anymore."

 

"You shouldn't have hidden from me in the first place," Laura says, coming off angrier than intended. She pauses and tries to collect herself. "You lied to me once before, Carmilla. You know how I felt about that."

 

"Hey. I would never lie to you for the sake of lying - I lied because I wanted to protect you -"

 

"And you're the first person to know that I don't need protecting! I'm not some delicate China doll, and you're not Danny. You can't keep lying to me, not even if you think it's in my best interests. I can take care of myself."

 

"This isn't a case of past-curfew library raids." Carmilla's fists curl, and they both know why. "This is a matter of life-and-death. I don't want to lie to you, Laura - you _know_ you're the only person here I trust. But LaFontaine - I can't stand that flame-haired dimwit and their nonsensical gabble, but they _are_ majoring in biology. And - they mentioned that you hadn't been yourself, that period of time you believed me to be dead. Even though I'm not entirely sure what's happening, I couldn't put you through that again. I've watched your videos," she repeats. "And believe it or not, I have a heart. Or one that is big enough to want to save you from hurting."

 

For all the time Laura spends thinking Carmilla is the most world-weary person ever (which, okay, she is), she can sure be naïve as hell, too. It's such a stupid thing to say, and Carmilla looks like she believes it one-hundred percent. It frustrates her more than it endears her. "You can't spend forever saving me from getting hurt," she points out.

 

"You won't be around forever," Carmilla responds. Touché. "But I will. I think."

                                                                              

Carmilla falls despondently silent, then, and the hand that isn't resting on Laura's thigh is turning over restlessly in the air. It's her right hand, the same hand that had been clutching the Blade of Hastur. The lack of any physical signs of damage (Laura had been expecting something truly Harry Potter, but there's not even a wizened finger) makes the situation scarier. Whatever's lurking, if anything at all, is invisible. Hidden under the surface. Carmilla twiddles her fingers. It's maybe then that it seems to hit Carmilla - that the truth will come out, whether or not she willingly gives it up or whether Laura stubbornly hounds her for it. So when Carmilla's shoulders slump, Laura hones in on the answer she so desperately needs.

 

"Did you know all along?" Laura asks. "When you came back from - the dead - did you suspect the Blade's after-effects?"

 

"I certainly suspected the lack of. After all that researching and that scare-talk... I thought going after the Blade was a suicide mission. I'd accepted that. Love has its sacrifices, and all that." Carmilla's lips quirk into a smile, and she is the only one here who finds anything mildly humorous about the situation. Laura's hands feel stone-cold, rigid under Carmilla's grasp.

 

"I thought I was going to die. I thought I _had_ died - there was nothing, after I jumped. Not even Ell. So I kept walking, though I couldn't see. Kept walking, though I couldn't say a word, though I couldn't feel a thing. I couldn't feel Ell reaching out for me anymore. I couldn't feel you, either. When everything you care about is gone, isn't that death? Then at some point, everything exploded back into colour and I thought - I thought I was in purgatory, that this was my passage to Hell - and then I blinked, and it was - it was a cherry bomb.

 

"I thought it was a joke." Carmilla laughs. When Laura gives her a disapproving sideways glance, through narrowed eyes, Carmilla's laugh relents - though her amusement does not. "It may sound stupid but hear me out, alright? All those years ago, when I was an teenaged countess, I thought I could only die once. Yes, I _did_ die, but then I woke up again. And after Maman took Ell and put me in that coffin, I thought I had died again. Seventy years is a long time for anyone, vampire or not. And then I woke up again, to the sound of bombs and explosions. Now the third time I die, I am at the bottom of a pit and another explosion brings me back to life. I don't know. Maybe I have been wrong all this time. Maybe I truly did die all those times, and this is just another cycle in a reincarnation. Maybe Ell, and those dances and waltzes were just another lifetime and I so happen to remember the grisly details. Maybe this time it's another new start. I certainly feel different - and it wasn't until I really... thought about it..."

 

"You think you're slowly dying," Laura says bluntly. How many times can 'death' crop up in a conversation with an immortal vampire? "You think you're actually, properly dying and you don't know what to do."

 

"That is a _possibility_. I never thought mortality would be a problem, not for me. I'm not like Will. He was easy to anger, easy to bait into a fight - to the death. I avoid that road. I _avoided_ it, I mean. To a point."

 

Laura swigs her cider, considers sinking further into herself. "Until you got roped into pulling off some heroic vampire crap."

 

"I didn't get roped into anything, Laura. I did it for you, but not _because_ you wanted me to."

 

The tumblr post and the angry tweet and the even angrier YouTube video now seems like the worst thing to have done: she feels like an immature child. Which she is, compared to Carmilla's many years of worldly experience. And yet she is not the one facing doubts and questions about her mortality. She, the human, the naïve human - is coming to terms with the possibility of a vampire _dying_. Bile rises in her throat. An honourable sacrifice is not supposed to be rewarded with detrimental consequences - but here they are.

 

"If you knew all along, why did you flee with us? Why didn't you stay, where the Blade last was, and find out what was happening? I would've stayed with you -"

 

"That's a problem in itself. Laura, we had no choice but to flee. The university would probably have swallowed us whole. And besides, if I hadn't come with you, you'd be gingerbread." Carmilla shrugs. "I prefer you human and alive. Look. I don't want you to _stay_ with me, Laura. I want to _go_ with you. There is a difference."

 

Laura feels like a child again. "Then you should've told me, as soon -"

 

"What would I have told you? Scraps of the information I hardly know? Do you know how frustrating it is to have theories about your own existence and no way of confirming them? I am in the cold, just as much as you are - but, you know, I'd rather spend a forever in the unknown than anchor your lifetime with it. I tell you I think I am dying but in truth I only know that at this moment I'm _not_ , so where does that leave me? Still a vampire? How do you test for immortality without simply killing me off? I still need to feed, I can still flit from one place to the other; I am still a vampire, yet I feel like I'm being drained from the core. None of the texts in the library are of any help, and JP is - as useless as I thought he would be. I don't know. I thought, maybe..."

 

Carmilla trails off, and stares into the distance. It reminds Laura of that night she'd caught Carmilla by the window in their old dorm, gazing at the stars. Wistful, nostalgic. Not so invincible. "Maybe what?"

 

"I thought maybe if I just let it happen," Carmilla says, "the Blade would - I mean, it's 'all-consuming', isn't it? I thought - I guess I wouldn't have minded, if it consumed anything at all, that it should be my immortality."

 

The idea of Carmilla wanting to accept a life of mortality is about as horrifying, to Laura, as her accepting a life of _im_ mortality. Being with Carmilla sometimes robs her of the ability to think straight, but she's no fool. Laura Hollis plans ahead; she's known she'd wind up being a journalist from the day she turned seven. It had taken mere days after her first kiss with Carmilla to start listing the implications of going out with a vampire. There's a pros and cons sheet tucked deep in her filofax. _I'm going to age and Carmilla never will_. She remembers writing that point. 

 

Years go by and humanity fades; shreds of it retained for that one sprinkle of light in your life that shows up, too sporadically to be worth it. Carmilla doesn't need wrinkles to show she's an old soul trapped in a weary heart. Laura's known from the beginning that it's never going to be an option for her. Carmilla knows this too. But, as Laura glimpses to the side and sees Carmilla's face, contorted and twisted, stuck in a permanent grimace - she realises that it's now she's trying to do something about it.

 

"It was a chance. A slither of one, but a chance all the same." It's more defensive than sorry. "To redefine our forever. I thought I might as well take it."

 

"Without telling me," Laura says, softly.

 

"Without telling you." Carmilla laces their fingers together, squeezes like she's trying to imprint the feel of Laura's hand in hers. Redefining forever, one touch at a time. "Except you were always going to back me into a corner about it and I, clearly, underestimated LaFontaine's ability to keep their gummy trap shut."

 

There is a slight coldness hidden in the gentle way Carmilla speaks. A hostility Laura doesn't remember ever hearing, even when they'd just started their roomie-adventure and bickered all day and all night. Laura's stomach lurches when she thinks about the course of these past few weeks, and the number of times she'd thought to herself why Carmilla should hide something from her. The number of times she'd thought, 'there's something I'm not privy to' - and, conversely, the utter lack of thought she'd given to the fact that maybe there was a _reason_ why she shouldn't be privy to such information. She's led a dogged chase. She wonders if _that_ is the reason Carmilla had chosen to hide.

 

So much for being the considerate one in the relationship.

 

"It's not a matter of _your_ mortality, Laura - regardless of the effects of the Blade, or lack of." Carmilla says, quieter, "if your mortality is something of an immovable object, then you know eventually we would have had to make some sort of compromise."

 

 

-

 

 

 _I just didn't think we'd have to deal with this so soon,_ springs into Laura's mind later, when they're eating lunch - a huge order of Vietnamese spring rolls - in Carmilla's bed. _But then what does time matter, anyway?_

 

 

-

 

 

"How do you know the blade isn't still all-consuming you, as we speak? I mean, you seemed to imply the other night that you'd hoped it would rid of your immortality, like it's not, but... how do you know?"

 

"I have no idea." Carmilla holds open the door for her and Laura hesitantly walks through. They are in the library, that dusty shit-hole of a place that had never much liked Laura. There are no flying books this time. "I don't know if I'll ever find an answer. I don't know if I'll continue to search for it, either. The more I think about the impossibility of the research, the more I think: why _not_ walk into the unknown? I've had to feed more, that's it - I can't tell if I'm simply hungrier or if the Blade's being a bitch."

 

"But surely you want a definite answer," Laura argues. "You can't go spending your entire existence wondering if you'll die or not. What if, one day, say - say you _do_ , and you've just wasted a lifetime -"

 

"On the other hand, if I spend my entire lifetime - eternal or not - searching for an answer and it never comes, then surely that is a waste, too? Right now, there's a slight chance that my inevitability doesn't equate to living forever. I find that comforting. How is that a waste of time?"

 

"Then why are you still here, rifling through Sumerian texts?"

 

"Because you wouldn't give up on it," Carmilla sighs, draping an arm over her shoulder as they walk through the muggy stacks of the library. It's every bit as spooky as she remembers - that time the library tried to kill her. Hm. "We keep going around in circles about this."

 

"I just wanted you to stop hiding your questions from me," Laura mumbles. Her cheeks are hotting up, about as quickly as she realises her own naivety. Again. "You know _I_ could be your inevitability?"

 

Carmilla tips her head back and laughs; maybe there _is_ some kind of role-reversal thing going on because Laura's eyes are fixated on the exposed skin of her neck, smooth, inviting. She blinks - clearly she's all sorts of thirsty - until she realises Carmilla's laughing because:

 

"You don't believe me."

 

"No," Carmilla admits. She pulls Laura closer, but the blasé attitude serves only to drag her further away. "But I'd always hoped you'd say something like that. And that's..."

 

 _Enough_ , Laura wills her to say. But Carmilla doesn't, and kisses her temple instead.

 

 

-

 

 

Laura shovels popcorn into her mouth, and neither of them are really watching Gene Kelly prancing about on-screen. Too jovial. Her mind is occupied by a whole new sludge of problems, and one of has haunted her for a few days now:

 

"If I'm the immovable object, then does that mean you're -"

 

"It means we'll think of something." Carmilla reaches over to pause the movie. "Can we put something on where there's a lot less grinning?"

 

 

-

 

 

"So... let me get this straight: you're hungry for blood, you're moody, easily aggravated and you feel as if you could be 'happy one minute and miserable the next'. And this - this is..." Danny's face crinkles up in a way that shows just exactly how much pain she's going through in order to remain courteous. "Unusual, for you?"

 

Carmilla lazes on the bed, legs spread wide. It makes Danny want to look everywhere but _at_ her, so at this point she's effectively talking to the ceiling. "Yeah."

 

"And," Danny clears her throat, looking to Laura for help. "You think the Blade's done that to you?"

 

"You know, your mind is a wondrously empty cavern, sasquatch."

 

"It's sapping away at her," Laura tries to explain in the face of Carmilla's lack of cooperation (and she'd promised she would at least attempt to be civil with Danny, which is annoying). Carmilla nods in silent affirmation. "Or something like that. I mean, I've whittled it down to about five theories -"

 

"None of which are plausible," Carmilla says.

 

"Right." Laura scowls at her, before turning to shrug at Danny. "Sorry. That's literally all we know."

 

"That's it? This shitstorm for -" Danny coughs and tries again. "I mean, a little information is better than no information, so - uh - so, are you two... okay now? With each other?"

 

"Well -"

 

"Another symptom, doc," Carmilla interrupts. She is more invested in examining her fingernails than pretending she's got a genuine query, but Danny's so on-edge and eager to keep up appearances of being polite that she gives a non-committal 'hm?' anyway. "Increased libido. All the time. Definitely going to have to do something about that."

 

Danny's face goes about as red as her hair, and when Laura slaps Carmilla on the arm for her indiscretion later that night, Carmilla mutters something like, "that was for the tomato" - and Laura laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

 

 

-

 

 

Going against every journalistic bone in Laura's body, they eventually cease their hapless search for answers, for the definite yes/no in terms of Carmilla's immortality (mortality?). It's deflating, to come up with nothing; there _is_ an ending to this somewhere, a conclusion that's more satisfying than being left in this halfway house - but it's not theirs for the taking.

 

On the plus side: the time that they spend together consequentially feels like it's expanded. Laura knows nothing about space-time continuums and physics and whatnot, not that it matters because they live in a world where vampires exist, but maybe they've opened a door into a new, preferable, friendlier universe where the means is more important than the end, and thus the end of a lifetime is not nearly as important as how you fill it.

 

Carmilla still refuses to watch Spring Awakening on YouTube, but she does watch Wicked. "I can appreciate a musical with a song called No-one Mourns the Wicked in it," she reasons.

 

It is a Wednesday when Laura returns from a heavy day of tree-planting with the Summer Society girls and enters their dorm. Carmilla's still fast-asleep from her last hunt. She fishes a Yankee candle from the depths of her rucksack. It's black coconut. Coconut is the best scent - possibly in the entire world - and the colour black is enough of a compromise for Carmilla. She lights it, sets it by the kitchen counter, goes over to her desk - and then an arm shoots out, grabs her by the thigh and tugs.

 

"I thought you were asleep," Laura laughs, stumbling over her own legs. She can see the top of Carmilla's smile, poking over the duvet. "Hey."

 

"Wednesday's a lazy day," Carmilla mumbles. "Hey."

 

"It's four in the afternoon, Carm, you literally can't get lazier than that."

 

"Oh - get in and stop trying - in vain, I might add - to make me feel guilty about lounging around in bed all day when you've been out doing..." Carmilla blinks the droopiness from her eyes, and sniffs. "Have you been gardening?"

 

"Ugh, _yes_ , and Natalie keeps insisting hyacinths will work because her colour palette's all over the place and she's so oblivious that she can't even see they'll clash with the mural! Anyway, someone's got to make the university look nice again, and seeing as you're contributing a total of nothing -"

 

"I'm bedridden with the force of my enamourment with you, sweetheart," Carmilla drawls, all Casablanca. She flutters her eyelashes, tugs again at Laura's leg until she climbs into bed with an eyeroll. Laura ignores the way her stomach tightens and knots at the very mention of the word, and how the weight of those four letters must feel like a feather to someone as old as Carmilla. "You don't know how monotonous it is to be thinking about you constantly."

 

"Poor you," Laura teases, but she snuggles closer anyway, letting warmth and contentment seep into her bones and run in her blood. "So I guess you probably don't want to be seeing much of me right now, huh?"

 

"Don't be daft." Carmilla rolls over onto her side, and snakes an arm around her waist. Drags Laura even closer to her, though her eyes are still half-shut, and noses her collarbone. She presses a kiss there, and chuckles in time with Laura's shiver. "You know I'm a glutton for punishment."

 

"I don't know, I mean, you sort of make it sound like you don't want to be thinking about me..."

 

"I think you misunderstand," Carmilla murmurs, playing along, and this time she makes the effort of moving and shifts so she's on top of Laura, slowly lowering her body weight. It's a nice pressure, and when Carmilla is satisfied that she's effectively trapped Laura beneath her, she dips her head to kiss her on the lips. "I've been around for over three-hundred years. I've grown to enjoy monotony."

 

 _Come on,_ she wants to say, to laugh, _that's the best you can come up with?_ But she melts into Carmilla's kiss all the same, her arms automatically encircling Carmilla's neck, pulling her down to cancel the last bit of space between them. If they have been spending the past few weeks inadvertently drifting further apart, Laura wants to make up for it.

 

This is how they stay for a long time: kissing, taking all the time in the world. Carmilla is insistent and open-mouthed one moment, and gentle and chaste the next. Laura lets herself be led because it feels as if she's been running after Carmilla for a while now, and it's just nice to be chased and kissed all over. To hear the little, sweet sighs in Carmilla's mouth and know she doesn't really have to do anything, but kiss back and love back, to elicit those noises. Carmilla pulls away, eventually, running her tongue over Laura's bottom lip. A cold hand threads through Laura's hair, pushes strands away from her eyes. "Hey," she says, with a smile. Room 307, Laura thinks, can suck it.

 

"Hey," Laura says back. Maybe this can be 'their thing' that couples always have in films: little ticks that are special, to them, and them only. She lets herself stare into Carmilla's eyes, feeling stupidly dim-witted, and decides to rectify it with a kiss, leaning up. Her hands slide down from Carmilla's neck, fingernails scraping down her back - and then Carmilla has them pinned down on the bed, above her head.

 

Laura breaks off the kiss. "Hey - I'm not gonna let you touch me if I can't touch you."

 

She doesn't have the time to reinforce this statement, for Carmilla is already sucking and biting her way down Laura's body, pausing at her sternum to look at her, to test what she's just said. Her hands are still firmly forced down into the mattress, and Laura - despite the ache between her legs, and the urgent need to just fuck - _now_ \- manages to level with Carmilla's gaze. "I wanna _touch you_ , Carm."

 

"Don't think of it as a restriction," Carmilla assures her, placing a kiss just above where her heart is. "I just think, as you have been manually exerting yourself all day and I have not, that I should maybe do some _work_."

 

It is easy, negotiating with Carmilla - if only because most of the time Carmilla can't tell the difference between concession and (Laura's style of) bargaining. Or because she likes to pretend she doesn't. "Carm."

 

She only gets a reluctant mutter of " _right now, it's Carmilla to you_ " but Carmilla immediately releases her vice-like grip on her hands, and kisses Laura's smug smile away.

 

 

-

 

 

They fuck until the early hours of the morning, at a frantic pace, and then a languid pace, and Laura thinks they nap without knowing, before regressing to just kissing again, remapping each other's bodies like time isn't a factor. Because it isn't, that's what Laura's learnt in all of this: is that forever is only the beginning and the end, and if the muddly, mushy bit in-between point A and B isn't special enough, then probably it's not worth sticking around for. And here, she is not in room 307 anymore but she has Carmilla - a one-of-a-kind, special muddly, mushy bit in-between - panting against her neck, whispering, moaning her name into the cool air like it's some kind of magical mantra.

 

Her name is only Laura, plain and simple and very non-mantra-like - but Carmilla says it over and over again with such fervour and effortless adoration that with every repetition it begins to sound like one. It's somewhat akin to receiving a green A+ on your homework. Laura's collected enough of them to know it's very addictive, empowering - which is almost how she feels when Carmilla lets her own hands get pinned above her head, and implores her, "Laura - _please_ ".

 

At some point, their neighbours (whose names are still unknown to them, and will probably remain that way indefinitely) bash against their adjoining wall with what they suspect is a baseball bat. Laura, nestled comfortably between Carmilla's thighs, smacks her fist against the wall - really, how _rude_ of them. Bye-bye neighbourly camaraderie, she says to herself, and presses the flat of her tongue against Carmilla's clit, licking up. Carmilla draws out a loud " _fuck_ " and Laura dutifully slides her fingers in and fucks her until her back's arching from the bed, hands grappling wildly at the bedsheets. Laura thinks, giddily, that the entire floor can probably hear them and actually she really doesn't mind at all because when Carmilla comes, Laura's head is spinning so fast that she can't tell if the string of expletives Carmilla's running off are French or German or English.

 

She barely gives Carmilla time to breathe between her ragged 'fucking hell's before she dips her head down, grinning at the way Carmilla tenses. It's a sight that hasn't grown old yet - that is Carmilla bracing herself for the feel of Laura's mouth on her, nipping at her inner thigh, tongue sliding over her wetness. That, combined with the lack of unfavourable reviews on the intricacies of her tongue's handiwork, is a huge ego boost. Carmilla grips onto her hair so hard that it hurts, and she can hear, through the loud buzz that is her self-admiration of a job _truly well done_ , "Laura, Jesus, slow down a second."

 

"Just - one more round. I thought you were a vampire."

 

"You're going to pull that one on me? Laura, so help me, I'm going to fuck you through the mattress in a minute -"

 

Laura bangs on the wall again and instructs, almost primly, "go louder this time."

 

"Oh for fuck's sake - oh _fuck_."

 

Later, she crawls back up the length of Carmilla's body, hands palming greedily at her girlfriend's breasts and says against her mouth, "you think they'd be horribly offended if we popped round now and introduced ourselves?"

 

"Possibly." Carmilla laughs, and strokes Laura's arm, slick with sweat. "I can't imagine too many people would be appreciative of some short-stack knocking at two in the morning just to breathe pussy on their faces."

 

 

-

 

 

It is Thursday, eleven-thirty AM, when Laura kisses the tip of Carmilla's nose as she yawns herself awake. Carmilla swats her away. "I know it's not past noon," is all she says, buries her face in her pillow. "Don't talk to me."

 

So some things don't change.

 

 

-

 

 

They don't actually make it out of bed at all, and Perry comes knocking on Friday evening. She doesn't get an affirmation - they are still very much naked and distracted in each other, and Carmilla's hand is roaming up Laura's thigh and cupping her ass - but Perry pokes her head around the door anyway and nearly soils herself.

 

"That is -" she blinks so furiously that Laura is worried her eyeballs will fall out. This clearly delights Carmilla, who's already halfway into a snide remark about the canteen's revamped menu. Perry remains distressed by the door for a moment, and then she utters: "We were just wondering where you two had disappeared to, but, um...well..."

 

Laura smiles brightly at her, a disturbing mix of innate peppiness and the sheer enjoyment of Carmilla's hand squeezing her butt. "You'll be pleased to know that we now like our new room. Thanks for the Yankee candles, by the way! It's helped us make our room our home, I think."

 

"We're imprinting into the furniture," Carmilla says, unhelpfully. Perry closes her eyes. "Which is genuinely more fun than it sounds."

 

 "Well." Perry sighs. "If you need any refreshments, any - just - remember to keep hydrated."

 

"Oh, don't you worry about that." Carmilla's tone makes Perry turn towards the door, and she's already halfway out and shutting it behind her when Carmilla's predictable shout of: "It is something of an oasis in here" chases her from the vicinity.

 

 

-

 

 

"Let me get this straight." LaF, after several days of coercion from Laura (and no help from Carmilla), has overcome their fear of getting their ginger head ripped off by Carmilla-the-panther. They fiddle with the rim of their beer can. "You thought you were dying, came to me for help 'cause I had JP and my wealth of scientific knowledge -" Carmilla scoffs at this, but LaF pointedly ignores her. "And now you... _don't_ think you're dying? I mean, you are a vampire, granted, but...anticlimax or what?"

 

"Well, we're not entirely sure," Carmilla says. "Point is, is that we'll just have to say 'come what may' to the universe."

 

"Poetic." LaF snorts into their beer. " _I_ think you should be telling the universe 'fuck you' for not giving you a definitive answer."

 

Laura's eyes bulge. "That's what I thought!" A pause. "I mean, initially. And still a bit now. Like, sixty-eight to seventy percent of the time. With increasing upper limit or leeway on sick days."

 

"Humans." Carmilla is currently behaving how Laura would imagine Mircalla Karnstein to have been: sexily snobbish. "The fruitless search of an answer is sadder than getting no answer at all was my reasoning, if you must know, LaFontaine."

 

"She's right." Danny appears from nowhere, ducking under the doorway to the kitchen with two cans of Fosters in hand. She holds one out for Carmilla. Everyone stares at her, like she's been possessed by a truly fucked-in-the-head demon. "Beer, Karnstein?"

 

"No, I'm alright thanks." Everyone remains staring at the civility between the duo, until Carmilla leans back in her chair and yawns. "I tend to avoid the drink of peasants."

 

 

-

 

 

Laura likes the idea of growing old with Carmilla. It's sweet, the picture she has in her head of them sitting on a porch somewhere in the Austrian countryside. She'll force Carmilla into taking up knitting or something mundane like that. The alternative is almost certain but, admittedly, not as appealing to her: growing old beside an ageless Carmilla, and most days this shoves the Austrian porch scene out of her mind. She is not sure whether Carmilla would stay with her, because she can say one thing now and want another thing years down the line.

 

How do you ask someone if they would stay with you, when you are actively deciding against the option to stay together - forever? How can she hope she is enough for Carmilla when Carmilla is not enough for her to want an immortality together?

 

It's selfish, and she finally says this one day. Carmilla tells her the opposite. "You can't choose my being a vampire, Laura, but you _can_ choose your own fate. That is simply having a bit of autonomy about your life: not selfishness."

 

It doesn't stop her tedious fretting, and it deprives her of sleep. It's not okay that their relationship will end with Laura leaving her and Laura never considering the alternative. It's not okay that Laura is the 'immovable object'. It's not okay that Carmilla's made a big grand sacrifice for her and she is not willing to reciprocate by extending their future together. It's not, is it?

 

"I'm _here_ ," Carmilla always says. "Is that okay enough for you?"

 

"Of course it's okay," Laura replies, a little angry that she should have to ask at all. "Of course you're okay, you know you've always been _more_ than okay. But that doesn't mean you understand."

 

"No. I don't. And I think you're exquisite, but that doesn't mean _you_ understand, either. You know if you just take your foot off the gas pedal for once, Laura, maybe you will stop whizzing past those invaluable pit-stops in life and you'll refuel and _live_. Isn't that what this is all about anyway?"

 

The message rings loud and clear: stop worrying, accept life as it is, blah blah blah - all that motivational, inspiring shit that Laura used to gobble up in her writing-fanfiction-on-tumblr days. That was before she started going to a uni where the Dean was some psycho vampire and her girlfriend wasn't far off. The sentiment might not resonate with her anymore but there's barely a border between lying to yourself and acceptance anyway, so she chooses to live with it. It means that Carmilla starts to smile at her again without glumness clouding her eyes.

 

"You know," Laura says one day, when they're walking across campus and there's light snow falling from the sky. The frost on the ground crunches beneath her feet. "You could make a bit more of an effort with Danny and the others."

 

Carmilla laughs. "No."

 

"Oh come on, you didn't even _try_ -"

 

"This'll undoubtedly plaster a sickeningly idiotic grin to your face..." Carmilla drags the heel of her boot along the ground. "But there's no space in my dead, shrivelled, un-beating heart for your imbecilic friends, when _you're_ hogging all the room."

 

It _does_ plaster a sickeningly idiotic grin to Laura's face, and when she thinks back to their earlier conversation about selfishness and how bad it is, she decides, once and for all, that some things deserve to be wanted with all your heart. It also tarnishes the image she has of herself in her mind as a gold-star good person in general, because maybe the deflation of Danny's smile in response to a Carmilla-insult is worth all the times Carmilla looks at her like she's a star glimmering in the night sky.

 

"Such a romantic," Laura says, beaming.

 

Carmilla dumps a snowball on her head and kisses the indignant squeak away. "Get used to it."

 

The snow falls harder until it's something of a blizzard. Laura's teeth are chattering within five minutes, though she is insistent they stay outside to admire how nice the campus looks. "Your restoration work is paying off, then," Carmilla jokes, because they both know that under the beautiful white blanket of winter there is just rubble and ruin and shit. But Laura takes the praise and wraps both arms around Carmilla's waist. Carmilla shifts her own arms too, so they are cocooned within each other, and holds on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi - thanks reading up to here and I guess I got this written quicker than I thought. I hope that was OK, certainly was something new (in my 2 fic history lol) and a bit of a struggle with the lack of ending, but I did have a lot of "in between" I wanted discussed, so there's a bit of gabble. I guess i have learned that the fic feels slower when it's more somber (and, uh, taking the piss out of less things). 
> 
> Just wanted to say a massive thanks for your kudos and comments and sharing the fic as well- I saw it posted on tumblr so thanks to whoever did that. I hope I'll get to write for the fandom again some time in the future. In the mean time, I hope you liked it and any critiques or feedback etc. are always welcome- I'd like to try and improve my writing a bit I think. :) Once again: Thank you!


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